One of the quickest things you learn as a college student is where to find free stuff. Free food, free t-shirts, free books—you name it and someone in the dorm knows where to get it for free. So why not free software? If you’ve recently shelled out big bucks for a killer laptop, why spend even more money on software?

We looked at productivity, image editing, and antivirus software, all of which are typically pricey, and found the best freeware alternatives in each of these categories.

Take a look, download them, and try them out. If you don’t like them, don’t worry, it’s not like they cost you anything.

Productivity Software

Instead of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 edition for $99.95, which comes with the 2007 editions of Excel, PowerPoint, Word and OneNote, check out OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org contains a word processor, a spreadsheet application, presentation creation software—beginning to sound familiar?—database creation software and a vector editor for desktop publishing. It uses the same common extensions, such as pdf, so that anyone can view or edit your work and it’s available for many flavors of Windows, Mac OS X and Linux at the low, low price of zero dollars.

But maybe keeping your work on one machine isn’t the best option for you. If you’re looking for the ultimate in portability, compatibility and affordability, Google Docs is your answer. It’s free and easy to access from any web browser and makes collaborating on that group project a snap. Google Docs lets you create, store, and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations online and even tells you who is viewing the document at the same time you are. You’ll never have to wonder who has the final paper again.

Image Editing Software

Face it, unless you’re a graphic design, photography or fine arts major, you don’t need a full-featured photo editor. So why pay for a bunch of features you’re not going to use, especially when there are numerous free options?

For desktop image tweaking, look no further than GIMP. This free image editor offers many of the same tools as Photoshop, including layers, unlimited undo/redo and support for many popular file types as well as plug-ins for other types such as RAW.

Reminiscent of Apple’s iPhoto, Google’s Picasa is another free image editor and photo manager that also allows you to post your photos online for free. We like its image editing options, especially the preview window of how each effect will alter the photo. Our favorite option though, is the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button which adjusts and enhances color and contrast in one click.

Antivirus Software

Think that you need to spend money for the ultimate in protection? Unlike dime-store deodorants, there is free antivirus software that actually works well.

Enter AVG Free 8.0, which will protect your Windows or Linux system against spyware, adware, identity-theft and, of course, viruses, without completely disrupting your system’s performance. There are also pay versions of AVG available, but the free version should cover your most basic antivirus needs.

blog.laptopmag.com